Although the global smartphone market is still in a downward trend, the foldable phone market is bucking the trend of growth, and against this backdrop, the industry chain is increasing its presence in this sector.
Foldable phones bucked the trend
The latest statistics from CINNO Research show that in the third quarter of 2022, the sales volume of foldable mobile phones in the Chinese market reached 723,000 units, a year-on-year growth of 114%. In the first three quarters of this year, the domestic sales volume of foldable mobile phones was higher than the same period last year.
In terms of market share, Huawei still leads the domestic foldable screen market. In the third quarter of this year, Huawei's market share accounted for more than half of the market, 53.2%, down 5.1% year on year, Samsung's market share was 20.5%, down 16.1% year on year, and Xiaomi's market share was 9%, up 5.8% year on year, ranking the third. vivo, OPPO and Honor increased their market shares from zero to 7.7%, 4.6% and 3.1% respectively.
In terms of sales volume, Huawei's foldable phone sales increased by 95% year-on-year in the third quarter, still ranking first in the domestic foldable phone market.
According to the report, Huawei's up-and-down foldable phone P50 Pocket, which was launched in the fourth quarter of 2021, has been the top seller of domestic foldable phones in the first three quarters of this year, and Mate Xs 2, which was launched in April, also achieved good results.
In contrast, according to the statistics of Canalys, the global smartphone shipment in the third quarter was 298 million units, down 9% year on year. Although Samsung still ranked first, it dropped 8%, with the shipment of 64.1 million units. Apple was the only vendor to show growth, with shipments of 53 million units, up 8 percent year on year. Xiaomi shipped 40.1 million units, down 8 percent year on year, while OPPO and vivo took the fourth and fifth spots with 28.5 million and 27.4 million shipments, respectively.
In the domestic market, 70 million smartphones were shipped in the third quarter, down 11 per cent year on year, according to Canalys.
Data from the China Information and Communications Academy, a subsidiary of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, showed that the total shipments of mobile phones in the domestic market totaled 226 million units in the January-September period, down 21.5 percent year-on-year.
CINNO Research believes that compared with horizontal screen folding that pursues larger display area, vertical screen folding keeps the inner screen size basically the same as that of ordinary large-screen mobile phones after expansion, while minimizing the size and weight, with simpler software adaptation and lower price. Its target audience includes those who want the unique look of a foldable screen but have a relatively limited budget and a need for weight and volume, and a significant proportion of them are women.
"With the release of Pocket S further lowering the accessibility barrier, we expect portrait folding to increase significantly in the future." Analysts at CINNO Research said.
Huawei Pocket S, a new foldable phone from Huawei, went on sale in all channels on Nov 10, starting from 5,988 yuan. According to Huawei, on the first day of sales, offline stores enjoyed good sales, with many consumers queuing up to buy the phones.
The industrial chain has increased
The overall large market is not good, but under the background of the subdivided folding screen mobile phone market, the industrial chain began to increase in this field.
From the perspective of terminal brand enterprises, almost all mobile phone enterprises except Apple have released new foldable phones recently, including Huawei Pocket S, vivo X Fold+, W22 5G phone jointly released by Samsung and China Telecom, and Mi MIX Fold2.
In addition, Securities Times ·e Company has learned that Honor and OPPO both plan to release new foldable mobile phones in the near future, among which Honor is scheduled to release its new foldable mobile phone Honor Magic Vs on November 23. The release date of OPPO's new foldable mobile phone is not yet determined.
From the perspective of OLED screens, a key link in the industrial chain, the upstream display industry in China has achieved breakthroughs in technology, manufacturing and market in the flexible and foldable field. Boe, Shentianma, TCL Huaxing, Vigna and other domestic panel manufacturers have accelerated the innovation and mass production of flexible OLED products.
It is understood that the largest cost increment for foldable mobile phones is the flexible AMOLED screen, which is a kind of OLED screen, and AMOLED is divided into rigid AMOLED and flexible AMOLED. The flexible AMOLED screen is the screen used by foldable mobile phones. Flexible AMOLED has unique advantages in folding and crimping. At present, among domestic manufacturers, BOE, Vigna, Shentianma, Royole Technology, and TCL's China Star OptoElectronics are the main companies that supply or distribute flexible AMOLED.
Recently, BOE said that the penetration rate of flexible AMOLED in the smartphone field continues to increase and the overall growth is good. The company's flexible AMOLED products have basically completed the introduction of mainstream global brand customers. In the future, BOE will focus on achieving more coverage of client product series and continuously increasing the proportion of the company's products in the client. At the same time, we will continue to promote the application of flexible AMOLED in IT, vehicle and other new fields.
Boe disclosed that its flexible AMOLED shipments continued to grow in the first three quarters of 2022, with shipments of nearly 50 million and 18 million in the third quarter, ranking first in China and second globally in terms of market share, according to data from the consulting agency.
On November 9, Shentianma also told investors that the company's flexible OLED products are mainly flexible OLED smartphones, which are mainly produced in Wuhan TM17 production line. In the first three quarters of this year, the shipment scale and sales volume of Shentianma flexible OLED smartphone products have increased quarter by quarter, and have been applied in multiple brand customer product series. The annual shipment target is expected to exceed tens of thousands of pieces.
Citic Securities said that the layout of domestic folding screen products tends to be perfect, driving the growth of AMOLED display industry chain.
China International Capital Corporation (CICC) said in a research report that the global smartphone market has entered a stock period from an incremental period, and foldable phones are expected to inject new impetus into the sector. The global smartphone market is stagnating and shrinking due to the severe homogenization of electronic products and the decreasing desire of consumers to switch devices.
Technological innovation is the primary driving force for the future development of the smartphone industry, and the development of folding screen phones will stimulate new industry growth.
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